Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I've never done anything that I need to be doing tomorrow. If someone says, 'We no longer want you here,' I won't show up again. It was true at 'The West Wing.' It was true in the Senate.
The professional permanent staff that lies right beneath them will still be in place, making everything work until the [Donald] Trump appointees start populating the offices on top of them.
This year [2015] has shown with painful clarity that our existing systems, approaches, and funding, are inadequate to the task at hand, and to the amount of human suffering that is ongoing.
I have no idea what I would be, I really don't have the vaguest idea what I would be, if my father had remained a Boston cop. I don't have any idea what I would have thought the horizon was.
All these stuff she's done before - the rosary, the deep thoughts, the faux British accent. It's the same thing over and over. She's be so much better if she just retired, and I like Madonna.
There was the slow discovery for me in the early '80s that Republicans are people too... That Republicans are perfectly reasonable people... and that Republicans can be right about something.
Donald Trump has been getting favorable comments from white supremacists, from American Nazis. And any explanation of Donald Trump`s rise that does not include those facts is a false analysis.
If a website has something I should know, somebody is spinning it around Twitter and I'll see it there. Before I would look at Huffington Post and Slate every day, now I follow them on Twitter.
I don`t think their voices are going to change at all. And it`s what Democrats have always been saying. We are stronger together, but we`re going to fight like heck if anybody tries to divide us.
If you have five weeks to write an episode of television or seven months to write a movie or several years to write a book, each of those things is going to be better than a live television show.
That seems to be a woman who is genuinely depressed that this is the political dialogue she [Hillary Clinton] is been thrown into in the 21st century in running for president of the United States.
I`m just learning that according to a source familiar with the transition process, President-elect Donald Trump intends to select Lieutenant General Michael Flynn as his national security adviser.
I believe the United States should join the rest of the world through paid family and medical leave. It would cost us a $1.61 a week in an increase in payroll tax.I think that`s a great investment.
When Jeb Bush came on the shows and couldn't answer questions about Iraq, and when he looked like he was unsteady, it absolutely solidified the concerns that they had had all along about his skills.
[Michael Flynn is] controversial among many people in the national security establishment, many people in the Republican mainstream. The thing about this appointment that, again, goes to me is most.
I`d like to curl up in a ball like Hillary [Clinton]said she would but she is out. And I think we all have to go do that. The fact of the matter is we don`t have the luxury of pulling back from this.
Senator Bernie Sanders saying in effect that he wants Washington to operate under the old rules, where someone like Steve Bannon would never be allowed to visit the White house, never mind work there.
What we're doing on 'The West Wing' is fictional. It's not a place to learn about politics or government. Has there ever been a fundraiser on 'The West Wing?' No. So right there, you're in Disneyland.
Donald Trump has appointed people from Goldman Sachs to his government. He said all sort of things that you would think would really annoy his core supporters. This is one of the big issues he ran on.
Everybody in Washington wants one of these jobs studies this book. It`s called the Plum Book because the people in Washington turn the pages looking for the plum that they want, the job that they want.
There are people who hate me, there are people who like me, and they're both right. I think people hate me for the right reasons, which is my politics and what they discern to be my personal attitudes.
Because Republicans defected and voted with all the Democrats to reject Jeff Sessions` nomination when they discovered that when he was working as a prosecutor in Alabama, he called the NAACP Un-American.
The 'West Wing' writers room would not have come up with the idea of running a presidential campaign in which an African-American gets elected. Because the realism view would have said that's not possible.
It was Bill Clinton who once pithily captured the contrast between the two parties when it came to selecting a presidential standard-bearer: "Democrats want to fall in love; Republicans just fall in line."
We have a responsibility to hold both sides accountable to the public interest, but that doesn't mean we reflexively and artificially hold both sides 'equally' accountable when the facts don't warrant that.
If there is a big bill to do infrastructure improvements and it is about working people, let`s do that. But let`s absolutely fight with every ounce that we have to protect healthcare and make it even better.
Let`s be the Democrats we know we have always been. And maybe every once in a when an opposition that lets you get even more tougher and clear about what you`re about. I think that`s a good thing for Democrats.
I majored in economics in college. Certain things were just out, like chemistry or biology, or science or math, that was just out of the question. That's just an aptitude impossibility, I couldn't have done it.
Publicly, defense lawyers cling to the text book theory that the defendant has no burden of proof and that no negative inference should ever be taken when a defendant doesn't defend himself on the witness stand.
The worst teacher in America could never do as much damage as the worst police officer in America. But the right wing has never even been slightly curious about evaluating the job performance of police officers.
Actually, Congress just did pass a tax plan like Donald Trump`s.They passed a tax plan which some Democrats voted for, significant number of Democrats which gave huge tax breaks to wealthy people and corporations.
The Republican base - the Evangelical get-out-the-vote troops - are going to be devastated when they discover how many closeted gay Republicans were involved in policing Mark Foley in the House of Representatives.
There's something about the power of influential correspondents tweeting something that has become the fastest way to get a story moving. It will turn into something much faster and much bigger than it would have.
If you're Chris Christie, who is governor of New Jersey, a state that obviously was impacted by 9/11, this gives you an opportunity to talk about how, as governor, you had to deal with terrorism and security issues.
It is highly likely that one of the two of them [ Donald Trump and Ted Cruz ] is going to be the nominee. This is a - look here, what is this - what this is really is a prescription for remaking the Republican Party.
Forty four percent of Republican voters believe President [Barack] Obama was not born in the United States. They believe he is not a legal citizen of the United States.They believe his presidency is unconstitutional.
Desegregation came very painfully to the Boston schools, long after John Kelly finished high school, and the pain of desegregating Boston schools was visited entirely on the students who looked like Frederica Wilson.
The real problem with Donald Trump is, if you engage him, it will only make things worse. It's like - it's a little bit what you were taught as a kid to not engage the bully, because they will continue to pick on you.
The history of [Mariano] Rivera is pretty unbelievable. And even if you're not a Yankee or a baseball fan, you have to appreciate the tradition. He gets respect from Boston fans and Phillies fans, and I love tradition.
I grew up a few years after John Kelly in an identical neighborhood in the other side of Boston and I went to high school in John Kelly's neighborhood. I know the neighborhood John Kelly comes from, I know the culture.
If in the script there is an argument about gun control, the most precious document you could produce at 'The West Wing' that week is a passionate, intelligent case against gun control. We know how to do the other one.
I will never forget the day in Washington when I met John Lewis by phone when he called me to ask about something. And the phone just shook in my hand. I couldn`t believe that John Lewis was on the other end of the line.
My pick for Best Political Move of the Year, which is the decisive (ph) and this means it is actually the best political movement is Bill Clinton getting on the phone and encouraging Donald Trump to run for the president.
Strom Thurmond, the former segregationist candidate for president was the Republican Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1986 and he tried to get Jeff Sessions` nomination through that committee, but he couldn`t.
I think Donald Trump is a master of moving on from losses when he suffered them, and if he can`t find a way in the short term to get the wall paid for by Mexico, I think he`ll Trumpet the fact that the wall is being built.
George Washington said, "All I am, I owe to my mother." That's so true. My mom pushed me to get in politics. She pushed me to learn a bunch of languages. She pushed me and inspired me. She is the reason why I'm in politics.
Hollywood's thinking is very typical. And it's just really predictable too. And I think at Hollywood, these box office movies are flopping. I mean, there hasn't been an original thought coming out of Hollywood since the '80s.
I never like the TV or movie Harvard characters. The fact of the matter is that most people who go to Harvard went to public schools and weren't in final clubs. I didn't even know that final clubs existed until I was a senior.
Rudy Giuliani would bring conflicts of interest into any Senate confirmation hearing that would be impossible to clear if confirmation hearings operate under the same gravitational forces that they used to in the pre-Trump era.
Henry Kissinger spent years negotiating the terms of our surrender there and ended up with a deal that he could have gotten on the first day he went to work in the Nixon White House - the Americans leave and North Vietnam wins.